


Initiative

by magpieinthesky



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse
Genre: Crossover, Explicit Language, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-08
Updated: 2009-10-08
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpieinthesky/pseuds/magpieinthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Spike had gone to Topher to get the chip taken out during Buffy season four?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Initiative

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Strong language, some violence (but not graphic). AU for both Buffy and Dollhouse (and, obviously, a crossover). This was originally posted on LiveJournal in RP format, and I have formatted this for easier reading. So much credit for awesomeness goes to darlingchaos, who is pretty much made of all that is amazing, and has given permission to post this elsewhere. Without her Spike, this would just be my Topher doing Tophery things.

Spike examines the scrap of paper in his hand and double-checks the name and number scrawled there. He dials the payphone, leaning against the frame heavily.

Topher leans back in his chair, looking at diagnostics and snapping his fingers to the pace of his racing thoughts when he hears the phone rings. Arching an eyebrow, he answers the phone and chirps, “Topher Brink!”

_Right number, then_. “Brink. Just the guy I was trying to reach. You work for this--ah, Rossum Corp? You a smart guy?”

A bit taken aback at the tone of voice and the fact that this man has his phone number, Topher narrows his eyes. “Riiiiight. Okay, guy, who wants to know?” He rolls his chair over to another screen, minimizing a diagnostic and tapping orders into the screen, reaching behind him to grab a juice box.

“Customer. Off the books. I need the best, and if you're not the guy, I'll keep looking.” He's half bluffing--hoping this guy's ego is big enough he'll take the bait.

Keeping one eye on the trace, he places the juice box on the table and raises a finger into the air. “Now waaait just a minute there. You say you need the best? You got the best. The best couldn't even dream me up in their greatest fit of once-in-a-lifetime genius! Now my real question is, why didn't you call customer service?” He puts on a secretarial tone. “I can transfer you through if you need, I'd just rather not waste my considerable brainpower on a simple request.”

“If you're just going to fuck around, I'll take my brain somewhere else. I've got a goddamn chip in my head. I need someone to get in there and undo it. Simple enough?”

Topher snaps to attention. _An active gone self-aware?_ “Uhhh, yeah!” _Keep cool, Topher._ “So what we're going to do is,” the trace brings up the location of the call, and he presses a button. “I'm sending someone to pick you up, and we'll take care of this whole mixup.”

“Good. Make it fast.” Spike checks the time. He's got some time. “I need to be out of here by morning.”

Topher answers brightly, “Not to worry, they're on their way now as we speak.”

Spike hangs up, grabbing a seat on a park bench. A few minutes pass, and a black van does a slow crawl down the street. He furrows his brow. The van rolls slowly to a stop by the phone, and a suit jumps out. The guy looks official. Almost governmental. The guy turns, and Spike catches sight of the bulge under his arm. He's got a gun. Spike snarls softly under his breath. “Fuck.” He slips into the shadows, booking it for the storm drain he came up from earlier. A short lope through the tunnels puts him a few blocks over, and he hauls himself back up to street level, headed for a pay phone. He really needs to get a new mobile, but they took everything he was carrying down in the lab. He dials Topher, spitting into the phone.

“You sent a gun after me.”

Topher finishes chewing on a Twizzler, and chokes out a laugh. “What, you think we're amateurs? We gotta protect our investments, man! I'm telling you, this guy won't give you any trouble, but he's there to make sure no one gives you or them any.” Smirking, he continues, “Now, the sooner you get in the van, the sooner we can deal with that pesky chip of yours. Okay?”

Spike sneers, “Screw that. I'll get someone with a little more talent to dig it out. Unless you can think of a better idea.”

Jumping out of his chair, Topher's mind is going a mile a minute. He brings the cordless phone into the hallway, snapping his fingers. “Now, that's just insulting! Every idea that comes out of my head is better. There is _no one_ with more talent than me. Now just...”

“So figure something out. SANS bodyguard, if you please.” Sarcastically, he adds, “Guns make me skittish.”

“Well isn't that too bad?” Topher thinks... _Guns make him skittish... romantic assignment, maybe? There weren't any males sent out today with that accent, though..._ He gives up trying to place the active and keeps going... and finally lands on a solution. “Well, lucky for you, I've got an even better plan for the gun-shy.” He swaggers over to the screens again, typing furiously. “So you're going to have to trust me on this. I need you to sit down and shut your eyes, because you're going to feel a very big headache come your way in about five seconds.”

Spike’s eyebrows shoot upward. “What the hell are you going to do over the phone? No one's that good.”

Topher glances up at the screen, mouth slightly open as he judges the coordinates. “Oh, I am that good. But more to the point, I'm downloading the directions to where you're going to get that chip out straight to your brain, so unless you want an even bigger migraine, I hope you're following my instructions right... now.”

There's a dull fizzing noise and Spike’s ears ring. He staggers, yelling hoarsely as the chip in the back of his skull sends out radiating waves of pain. “Hell!” He steps away from the phone box, leaving the receiver swinging. 

Topher waits patiently, sipping at his juice box and idly checking on all the other diagnostics of the current actives.

He lunges for the squawking phone, snarling into it. “What are you playing at?”

Startled, Topher snaps back to attention. “Oh! Hey, you're back already. That was a doozy, wasn't it? Those remote data downloads are just one example of my significant amounts of genius, but they're necessary when you don't come with us manually.” Smirking, he adds, “Now, if you can handle walking now, I suggest you use that new info to get over here.”

Spike crawls sluggishly through the dull pain in his head. He knows where to go. _Fucking scary._ The kid is creepy good. He'll give him that. He starts to run.

Several minutes later, he reaches a tall, corporate looking building, feels the buzzing in his brain pick up. _This is it_. He gives it a once over. Not so interested in coming through the front door. Brink's already shown that there's no shortage of armed suits hanging around. But if this company's as unknown as his connections promised, then security shouldn't be impossible. It'd be a cakewalk if he could still fight--but then, he realizes, he wouldn't even be here. _Damn Initiative_. He locates a drain, and hops down. He'll go in from underneath. The buzzing in his head guides him like an internal compass, and it's not long before he tumbles out of a shaft into a dark, pipe-studded room. He pads as quietly as his boots will allow to a door, cracks it open. He sees a brightly lit hallway, and at the end of it, a set of metal doors. They're marked with red Emergency Exit stickers, but he ignores them, crushing the alarm box above the lock and shouldering it open. The room past the doors is metallic, glowing blue with technology and oddly, arcade games. There's a small, nerdy looking man sitting in the glow of one of the bigger screens.

Brink.

He steps out of the shadows.

Suddenly sensing another presence in the room, Topher turns and sees a tall, slim blonde man. He quirks an eyebrow. “Mr. Chip-in-the-head, I presume? Please, step into my office, make yourself comfortable.” Topher assesses the man, narrowing his eyes. He's unfamiliar, but... there's something about him... “So, anything I could get you? Would... would you like a treatment?”

Spike steps cautiously into the main room. “I guess you could say that. What I want is a cure, little man. I need this thing out so I can go back to my normal life. I'm getting a little sick of some idiot with a computer calling the shots.” He gives Topher a long look. “Ironic. Isn't it.”

Topher bristles for a moment, then shakes it off. “Riiiight. Well, we'll set everything back to a clean slate, as they say, and then no hard feelings, right?” He gestures toward the chair. “Have a seat, and we can get started.”

Spike puts his hands up. “Hey, hey, now. Clean slate? Not so interested. I don't want you frying bits of my anatomy. I just want this chip out. Or turned off.” He gives the chair a dark look, and feels a sick twist in his chest. Gut instincts never lie. That chair is no good news. Too much like the lab, underground, where they put the goddamn circuitry in his head in the first place.

“Uhh, right. No frying bits of your anatomy. Check.” Still eyeing the chair, Topher tilts his head toward it. “That chair's just the ticket for taking care of pesky things planted in your brain, so we'll take care of it.” Snapping his fingers again, he heads to the control room, hoping the man will follow.

Spike follows, warily. “Don't mess with me, boy. You try to pull anything funny...” He hates this. He has no control. He has no idea about science--just wants this damn thing out. Can't trust computer-boy, can't trust anyone else either...

Topher holds his hands up. “I don't pull anything funny, man! I take this process very seriously. I just need the mechanisms in the chair to search out the location of what we've put into your brain, latch onto it, and pull it out. It's a very sophisticated process which, admittedly, took some fine-tuning, but now it's a very simple and quick procedure, and you'll be good as new once it's done.  
I don't make messes out of my work.”

Spike huffs out an irritated breath. “Better not.” He sheds his leather jacket and drops into the chair. It goes against every instinct in him; feels too much like being tied up back at that idiot Giles's house. He didn't come all this way to have this happen again.

Watching the man carefully, Topher says, “Right. That's it, just lean back, and that's good.”

Spike leans back, fighting the urge to bolt. He can hear machines clicking and humming and whirring to life, hear a few beeps and then, weirdly, some kind of soft alarm. “What was that?”

Topher stares at the screen incredulously. “Uhh... nothing to be worried about... it's just not registering something. Let me recheck the diagnostics.” He furiously types commands, his fantastic brain not offering any answers as to why this fail-safe system isn't picking up the man's vitals.

Spike cranes his neck. Life support. Bloody science guy has a screen full of flat-line. No 02 sats, no pulse. Maybe he can stall him. “Don't worry about that stuff. Just turn off the damn chip. I want to go back to normal.”

Topher gapes at the man. “Yes, I'll worry about this ‘stuff!’ This is highly important information. If I can't read the signs, I can't perform any procedure. I know you want to be normal, but you're going to need to have some patience while I work with the system!” He returns to working on the computer.

Frustration boils over. Spike lunges up out of the chair with inhuman speed, grabs the boy by the shirtfront. Three steps take them across the room, away from that deathtrap of a chair. “I said, forget the stuff. You're not going to be able to read the vitals; they're not there. So forget them and move on. Patience,” he growls, “Was never one of my strong points.” His voice drops in quality, taking on a harsher edge. “Get the damn chip out before I get fed up with you.” There's a bite to his words, and he can feel his fangs itching at his gums, though he fights off the impulse to unsheathe, bite down and drink til the other man goes limp, pale. Lifeless. He can't afford the pain the attack will bring--he needs his mind right here. He need his focus, his clarity.

Topher attempts to gulp, and wide-eyed, he considers the situation. “Oh-” He clears his throat a bit, “Okay, so you're not the poster child for patience, I get it.”

Shortly, Spike answers, “No, I'm really not.” 

Attempting to get any wiggle room from the man's grip, and failing miserably, Topher grits out, “Well, d'ya mind letting me go so I can try to figure this one out here? Because you're just losing more time by distracting me from my work... you know. Just FYI.”

The boy is gulping and sweating and squirming in his grip, and Spike has to bite back a groan. God, he's gone too long without hunting. He's missed this. It'd be so easy. Tip up the chin, go for the pale, slender throat. But he can't. He shoves Topher away, releasing him and turning away abruptly. 

“Figure it out, then.”

Topher shakes himself off, a hand flying to his neck and massaging it. He then straightens out his collar, tilting his head upward. His eye twitches as he glares at the man, and he turns once more back at the screens. “Oh, don't you worry. I will.”

Spike licks at his teeth irritably, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders.

Something the man said before now registers. “Uhhh, now let's just back up a little bit here. I mean, not to the part where you were physically threatening me, but the conversation part, just to be clear.” 

Spike rolls his eyes. “I didn't threaten you. Much.”

Topher squints at him. “You said--” he’s shaking his index finger now, “You said I wouldn't be able to _read_ your vital signs. That they're not there. That's not possible. This technology reads ALL vital signs, and I mean all. So how are you evading the technology?”

Darkly, Spike replies, “Magic. Do the damn... science.”

Topher retorts dryly, “Ha, ha. No really. I can't do my job unless you give me the information I need to get the computer system up and working again. So what is it? Some rival technology? Did one of the other Houses get to you and put in something so we couldn't recognize it? I just need... an _inkling_ of what I'm working with here before I do something really spectacular with this system.”

Spike rumbles, “You have no _idea_ what you're dealing with. The tech is from a group called the Initiative. Don't know who they are but they have a lab--a big, underground white thing.   
They grabbed me off the street and knocked me out... Woke up in a room half the size of this one.” He looks around. “Which is pathetic.”

Topher looks upward, focused. “Oookay. So this ‘Initiative,’ do you know what they did to make the vital signs invisible?” He murmurs, “That is some sophisticated technology. Why didn't I think of that?”

Spike hesitates. “Nope. Must have been science stuff. I don't know anything about it. Knocked out, remember? Woke up with this thing in my head.”

Topher turns back to the computers, rolling his eyes. “Real helpful. But what should I expect?” He looks around the computer, then reaches for one of the instruments lying about. Hefting a small device in his hand, he turns again to the man, fiddling with the knobs and small keyboard. “So when you woke up... did you smell fudge?”

Spike doesn’t have to affect confusion. “What? No. I smelled antiseptic. Does it matter?”

Adjusting the calibration on the gadget, Topher replies breezily, “Just checking. Okay. So when and how did you figure out there was something in your head?”

“When I--” Spike stops suddenly. “Does _that_ matter?”

Topher purses his lips. “Yes. _That_ does.” He’s typing notes into the small screen now.

“I...” Spike hesitates before continuing. “I went to visit a _friend_.” His lips curl around the word. Not exactly the word he'd use in most circumstances. “Tried to... Look, the point is it hurt, okay? I tried to get... close... to her and my head went all--” He waves his hands ineffectively. “It hurt, okay? A lot. Couldn't even think straight. Like a bomb had gone off in my skull. No matter how many times I tried...” He scrubs his hand over his face angrily. “Look, it really doesn't matter how I found out. Or-- Just get it out!”

Topher stops, pinning the man with a look and raising his eyebrow. “You aren't telling me everything.” In measured tones, he continues, “I can't get it out unless you tell me how. What exactly were you trying to do. How many times did you actually ‘try?’ What were the controls? What exactly causes the pain when you ‘try?’”

Flatly, but with an edge of barely-controlled anger, Spike answers, “I was trying to bite her. I tried at least four times, and after that, I gave up. Hurt too damn much. And what causes the pain, idiot, is the _chip_.”

Topher’s eyebrows shoot way upward. “ _Bite_ her?” He valiantly tries to hold back a laugh. “Tshh, that's an interesting choice. You couldn't just nibble? But you're missing the point. How did you know it was a chip? How do you know it isn't one of a _million_ other possibilities?”

Spike glares at him. “I know. I know, because I've _done_ it before. And I've been doing it for years, mate. Longer than you've probably been walking upright. So just get me back to normal. This chip is bad news.”

Rolling his eyes, Topher relents. “Okay, so you know. Do you know why someone would want to prevent you from ‘biting’ someone? I'd hardly think that was someone's whole goal in putting in some mind control. Seems kind of pointless to me, but hey? Why ask the genius his opinion when you just _know_?”

With a snarl, Spike leans over the man, spinning his chair around. Dangerously quiet, with a steely glint in his eye, he snarls, “Take a guess. Why do you think they'd want me to not _bite_ someone, Brink?” He lets his fangs drop without preamble, baring his teeth. Softly, he hisses slightly around the fangs. They were designed for something other than long speeches. “Here are your choices. You get this chip out and I go on my merry way. You keep playing games with me, I find someone else to get it out. And then I come back for you. And I show you exactly why it was there in the first place.”

Topher stares at the man, putting the gizmo down. “Uh... that's not possible, man. Erasable souls? Yeah. This?” He gestures at the man, “Not so much. So I don't know what game you're trying to play with me, but I'm not taking the bait. There is a reasonable explanation for all this, and I'm going to find it.”

Spike shrugs. “Keep telling yourself it isn't possible. I don't give a damn.”

Irritated by all the threats and put-downs he's had to endure Topher retorts, “Yeah? Well if you don't care so much, why don't you give someone else a try? See if you can find someone as smart as me, I bet it'd be real easy.”

Spike grits his teeth. “I'm running out of time. Figured you'd be easier than this.”

Topher raises his eyebrow. “You haven't exactly been the model patient yourself - withholding critical information, talking back, threatening me? I can see how you'd think that'd make me want to make things easier for you.”

Infuriated, Spike returns, “You either fix me, or I come back and kill you. How much easier does it get?”

Topher crosses his arms, intrigued. “You know, the more often you say that, the less power it has each time. I guarantee you no one is going to have the tech or brainpower to fix this outside of this room. So you stay here and play nice, or leave and don't get fixed. Either way, I'm easy.” He grabs a hackeysack and starts to play with it.

Completely enraged, Spike gives in to impulse. His mouth snaps wide, fangs greedily spread--but within inches of Topher's bare skin, a bolt of ragged pain takes over and he snarls in agony like a kicked dog, whipping away, clutching at his head. “G--DAMMIT.” He squeezes his eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths and threading his fingers through his hair, mussing it.

Having squinted and shrunk away in a belated non-voluntary reaction, Topher slowly opens an eye. Seeing the man cowering away from him, he straightens. “Well, well. At least a real scientist got to witness the results of that experiment.”

Spike spits. “Well, _what_? Goddamn experiment--”

Smirking, Topher begins, “Now, if you'll excuse me--”

“They made a real mess of my brain, you twit. Fix it.”

Topher whips out the device he had lain on the table to the side of him before. “I plan to do just that.”

Spike is still muttering. “Poking around and starving a bloke half to death--practically defanging... It's a nightmare.”

Topher coughs to get the man’s attention. “This gadget here,” he waves it, “is yet another product of my astounding collection of brain cells I like to call... well, MENSA hasn't come up with a word for it.  
But I digress. This, which has been recording all the movements of your body which show some indication of animation rather than vitals, can be plugged into this big ol' science machine here... and why do I explain this to you? Oh, because my voice is lovely.”

Spike spits, “Because you're an arrogant little--”

Topher smoothly cuts in, “Anyway, it will help me to actually complete the process we began without your vitals.”

Spike cuts himself off, with effort.

Topher mutters, “And maybe we can rewire that part of you that just doooooesn't know when to stop, huh?”

Spike’s hackles raise at this. “What does _that_ mean? I don't want to _stop_. That's the _problem_.

Topher smirks, busily working with both the pocket computer and the central system. “Don't worry about it. I've got it all under control, and I won't mess with your precious little quirks and foibles. We'll just be left with you and your remarkably charming personality. Sans chip.”

Slightly mollified, Spike replies, “Yeah, good. Fine. Just hurry up.”

Topher hums to himself, entering in a few more commands, then whips around “Okay. Back onto the chair you go.”

Spike throws himself into the chair impatiently.

Under his breath, Topher breathes, “I wonder if Claire can bring up some lollipops for the child here?”

Spike is far less able to defend himself than he pretends, and being here, at this mad scientist's mercy... it scares him. Science scares him. Demons and magic he can handle, but science he can't fight.

Topher touches the screen, frowning in concentration. He calls over his shoulder, “Okay, one last question for the sake of getting this perfectly right. How old are you, now?”

“Uh...” Spike squints. “126.” He pauses, then amends, “Technically.”

Curiously Topher asks, “Technically? And what age are you...” He waves a hand, “stuck at?”

Spike replies, “That's a complicated question.” Unsurely, “I was turned over in the 1880s, and after that... aging goes all... funny. You still _age_ , you know. People get that wrong all the time. You're not stuck at the same age forever. You still get older. It's just slower. Much, much slower.” He looks down at his own still-young physique. “Clearly.”

Topher pauses for a second. “All right, all right, I'll estimate, and the programming should take care of the rest.”

“It better.”

With his back to the man and silently putting his hands up in a "slow down" gesture, Topher rolls his eyes again. “Don't you worry. Okay, so sit tight, and this'll just pinch a bit.” He presses a button on the screen.

An electric jolt runs through Spike, and he hisses in sharp pain. It feels like his spine's doing the wave; all his nerves rippling under his skin.

As the machine pulls the mind out of the man, Topher turns around, shaking his head appreciatively and smiling slightly. “126 years of memories. I think I'm going to like exploring that.”

“What the hell?” Spike grits his teeth as another wave of electric tingles do a slow crawl down to the very tips of his extremities.

Topher’s smile turns mocking. “Shh, shh. It's much less painful when you don't struggle.” He waits, and the machine crackles with the absorption of so many images, feelings, and other neural goodies Topher will be able to unpack. He vaguely wonders about harnessing the man's power, but he's learned his lesson on changing physical type by too much. Once the machine shuts off and the chair rises the man to a sitting position, Topher pastes a bland smile onto his face. “Hello, Mike. How are you feeling?”

He stutters, feeling sluggish and foggy. “Did I...?” Everything is swimming, and he feels like he's drunk. “Did I fall...” Things are sparking and shimmering, but one thing is perfectly clear: Brink's smug, smiling face.

Topher smiles. Dolls are so cute when they first come back from being wiped.

Spike feels a wave of utter hatred rip through him; his skin feels raw and his nerves are jangling and he's so goddamn _thirsty_. He craves. He shakes his head, clearing out some of the cobwebs. “I warned you to stop playing games with me...” When he looks back up, his eyes are wide and black, his teeth lengthening by the millisecond.

Topher blinks. There is no way; he must have miscalculated. A rookie mistake!

Spike’s face is shifting, animalistic ridges forming in his brow as his whole bone structure morphs to accommodate the rapidly strengthening jaw, the steely tendons and razor-sharp teeth. The demon inside of him, that possesses him and had lain so dormant, so fucking _bored_ for so very long... It's awake, now. And it's pissed. The man that was William has been wiped away, utterly, and all that's left is the demon within. Spike. He snaps out of the chair with all the force of an uncoiling spring, like a bat from hell.

It dawns on Topher that there may be some trouble due to that miscalculation. He tries to back away.

It's almost funny how Brink thinks he can run. But Spike can fly. “Guess what,” he spits from between the fangs. “I'm all better.” 

Blood has never tasted so sweet.


End file.
